Kestrel Class Read online

  Kestrel Class

  Book One

  by

  Toby Neighbors

  Kestrel Class

  © 2019, Toby Neighbors

  Published by Mythic Adventure Publishing, LLC

  Idaho, USA

  All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Copy Editing by Ritchelle Buensuceso

  Books By Toby Neighbors

  Avondale Series

  Avondale

  Draggah

  Balestone

  Arcanius

  Avondale V

  The Five Kingdoms Series

  Wizard Rising

  Magic Awakening

  Hidden Fire

  Fierce Loyalty

  Crying Havoc

  Evil Tide

  Wizard Falling

  Chaos Descending

  Into Chaos

  Chaos Reigning

  Chaos Raging

  Controlling Chaos

  Killing Chaos

  The Lorik Trilogy

  Lorik

  Lorik the Defender

  Lorik the Protector

  Orion Porter Books

  Spartan Company

  Spartan Valor

  Spartan Guile

  The Marshyle Stories

  The Vault Of Mysteries

  Lords Of Ascension

  The Elusive Executioner

  Regulators Revealed

  Wolfpack Series

  We Are The Wolf

  Welcome To The Wolfpack

  Embracing Oblivion

  Joined In Battle

  The Abyss Of Savagery

  DT7

  Dragon Team Seven

  Uncommon Loyalty

  Total Allegiance

  Other Books

  Charter

  Jack & Roxie

  Third Prince

  Royal Destiny

  The Other Side

  The New World

  Zompocalypse Omnibus

  My Lady Sorceress

  The Man With No Hands

  ARC Angel

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  Elder Wizard

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  Table Of Contents

  Books By Toby Neighbors

  Toby Neighbors Online

  Table Of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  Jump Point

  We Are The Wolf

  Spartan Company

  Dragon Team Seven

  Dedication

  To everyone chasing a dream.

  And to my Sunshine who keeps me believing that dreams really do come true.

  

  

  Chapter One

  Ben Griminski pushed his body back into the shadows, scarcely daring to breathe. The Salvage Scalpers were climbing over the junk heap Ben was hiding in. There had been just enough time to scramble into a burned-out escape capsule before they caught sight of him with his treasure. He couldn’t help but notice the bloodstains inside the rusty wreck he was hiding in. It had been the last resort of some poor soul during the war, only to find it wasn’t enough. Either the passenger died when the pod crashed, or it had been discovered before the occupant could escape. Ben didn’t want to share the former passenger’s fate.

  The Scalpers were loud, which was the only thing that had saved Ben. If they had been moving quietly, he would have been caught out in the open. Not that he was doing anything wrong. On Torrent Four, no one owned the scrapyards. The vast fields of ruined tech, crashed and shattered aircraft, broken weapons, and scrap metals stretched for miles. Occasionally an unfortunate salvage hunter came across a bomb or an undiscovered load of explosives. With so much metal, it was almost impossible not to set off the dangerous ordnance. So far, Ben had been lucky. He had found nearly everything he needed without getting hurt or caught by the Scalpers. But he didn’t believe in pushing his luck. The sooner he could find a way off Torrent Four, the better.

  The Scalpers thought they owned the place, which worked in his favor. They were only interested in the salvage that came easy to them, rarely digging past the top layer of junk. What they really wanted was to catch a knowledgeable junker, raid their victim’s cache, and put them to work finding more valuables in the expansive scrapyards. Ben would never work for the Scalpers, and he would die before he gave them his ship. He had worked too hard and too long to lose her to the Scalpers, who would only rip her apart and sell the pieces.

  Ben watched with a sense of relief as the filthy Scalpers moved away. He didn’t dare show himself, not until he was certain no one would see or hear him. He had a fine piece of triple-insulated shielding, which he’d pulled from the hulk of an old Osprey class transport vessel. Most of her fusion core was melted to slag, but what remained was in perfect shape for Ben’s needs. He had cut it loose with an ancient angle grinder and was making his way back to his own ship when the Scalpers came tromping toward him.

  Crawling out from the crashed escape pod that was mostly covered with junk, Ben felt a renewed sense of fear. It was impossible to move through the mounds of metal, carbon fiber, ceramic heat shield panels, and jumbled wires without making noise. He wasn’t a coward, but the thought of losing his ship was more than he could bear. He moved quietly out from hiding and was just getting to his feet when a whistle sounded.

  Ben turned and saw a straggler pointing at him. The Scalper was dressed in rags, his hands so dirty they looked like he was wearing dark gloves. The Scalper continued blowing the whistle, and Ben didn’t wait to see the rest of the Scalpers come running. He knew they would follow him, and the only hope he had was speed. If he could be far enough ahead of the thieves, he might be able to hide again.

  Running across a field of scrap metal, junk, and old space ships was difficult under any conditions, but Ben didn’t have time to watch where he was going. His boots slid and fumbled across the shifting mounds of metal, which clanked and scraped loudly behind him.

  As Ben topped a small hill of junk, he risked a backward glance. Jus
t as he feared, the group of Salvage Scalpers was running to catch up. Fear mixed with desperation pushed Ben forward. He jumped down the small hill and landed on the cracked window of an ancient land vehicle. He could feel the glass giving way beneath him, and he flung his body forward, barely escaping the trap in the mounds of junk on the massive scrapyard.

  He scrambled to his feet and kept running. Ben knew the section of scrapyard he was in. His ship, an old Kestrel class vessel, was buried in junk not far away, but he couldn’t risk hiding there. He needed to lure the Scalpers away from his prize, so he turned to the right, racing around an old aviation tower that was leaning precariously over the junk field. He ran so hard, it felt as if his heart would break through his ribcage and leap from his chest. Eventually, he found the cab of an old transport and looked back over his shoulder. The Scalpers were nowhere in sight, so he climbed through the broken window and huddled on the rusted out floorboard.

  The seats of the transport were gone, as was most of the old analog dials and gauges. Retro tech was in high demand. The dashboard had been torn away, leaving loose wiring hanging down like the grotesque entrails of a giant robot. Ben pressed himself against the door, lodging his head under the vehicle’s steering column. His breath came in ragged gasps as he tried to calm himself down, and he listened for any sounds of the Scalpers.

  It was quiet for a long time, and Ben liked to think that he had simply outrun the thieves. The Scalpers weren’t known to be in great shape, but then neither was Ben. He only ran when he was being chased. Building was his forte, not strength or speed. He was a master at restoring things, and he marveled at the ingenuity of his ancestors.

  Torrent Four was a junk world, but it hadn’t always been so. Long ago, before the war, before Ben had been born and abandoned by his parents, Torrent Four was a thriving world full of industry and art. The citizens were proud and stubborn. Even in the face of the Royal Imperium’s overwhelming forces, they had refused to give in to the big government’s demands. And in return, the Imperium Fleet had slagged the entire planet. None of the towering buildings from before the war still stood. Vast junk fields covered most of the landmasses. Clean water was hard to come by. Food was handed down by the Royal Imperium in the form of tasteless protein bricks. And the air was choked with debris and the effects of heavy bombardment.

  It made Ben sad to think how far the planet had fallen, but it didn’t hamper his desire to leave. He wasn’t the type to stick around and try to rebuild from the ashes, even though rebuilding was like art to him. His heart was in the stars. Nothing could be better, at least in his mind, than the freedom of his own ship. And the Modulus Echo was his ship. He didn’t own her, simply because she was scrapped decades ago. But he had found her, and spent years restoring her. His sweat equity had, in his mind, given him the rights to her, and he was almost finished with the restoration.

  As the sun began to set and the shadows grew long, Ben ventured a glance out the broken window. There was no sign of the Scalpers, but Ben feared they were simply waiting for him to appear. He decided to wait until full dark before coming out of his hiding place. After squirming quietly for a few minutes just to get the blood flowing through his legs and numb backside again, he settled to wait for nightfall.

  Chapter 2

  Darkness didn’t bother Ben. There was just enough starlight that he could navigate the mounds of rusted metal. Torrent Four’s shattered moon hung like a ghostly reminder of the terrible losses of war. A large chunk of the moon had been blasted away, but the debris was caught in its orbit to form a luminous ring around the disfigured celestial body.

  Ben took it all in stride. He was born after the war, his parents disappearing before he was fifteen. With no prospects, Ben had turned to the salvage fields, teaching himself how to build things and learning his craft from the ruined tech that littered the planet. Slowly, over a decade, he had discovered that the old gear spoke to him. There was a logic and order to the way things were made. He could disassemble a device, find what was broken, and put it all back together again. It was almost second nature to Ben, just like the mounds of trash and trails that made up the section of the salvage yard he called home.

  Eventually, he came to a ridge of junk, a long mound that ran hundreds of yards in either direction. He climbed to the summit, which was forty feet from the surface of the salvage yard. From there, on a clear day, he could see a mile in every direction. At night, he could only see a short way, but it was enough to ensure he wasn’t being followed and there were no other scrappers nearby.

  He made his way down the other side of the ridge and slipped between two old water containers. Both had cracked like dried-out egg shells over time. From between them, Ben saw the hatch of his ship, the Modulus Echo. He had to climb up several feet and then slip down through the crack to get inside, but as soon as his feet hit the deck, a light came on beside him. It was a motion-activated lantern he had picked up and put back together. He walked through the cargo bay and up the stairs to the main level of the ship. Nancy Josslyn sat at a computer terminal. Not a holographic, gesture and voice-activated, bio-computer, but an old-fashioned binary computer with a keyboard. The display was built into the ship’s console station and showed a diagnostic of the ship’s systems.

  “Evening, Nance,” Ben said.

  “Is it?” Nancy replied. “I’ve been working and lost track of time.”

  “Well, that’s good, I suppose.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Hiding from Scalpers,” Ben replied. “I finally found the shielding I needed to complete the fusion containment chamber.”

  “So we can bring all systems to full power?”

  “If we can get the Zexum. Once I finish the fusion reactor, all we have left is to get the hydro-generator up and running.”

  “And find a pilot.”

  “I’ve got a lead on that.”

  Nancy leaned back in her seat and stretched. She wore thick, bulky clothing that hid her diminutive figure. Her hair was tied neatly back in a bun, and she wore no makeup. Nance, as Ben preferred to call her, was a no-nonsense type of person. She lived through her computers and was just as talented at hacking and programming as Ben was at restoring machines.

  “Better not wait too long. Running power from the auxiliary batteries isn’t optimal. They could go kaput at any time, you know.”

  “So you keep telling me,” Ben said. “Anything else go wrong while I was out?”

  “No, I got the solid state drives wiped and debugged the operating system. The system is slow, but fully functional. Navigation, coms, and engineering can all be accessed from here.”

  “We’re close,” Ben said excitedly. “I can feel it. Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat,” Nance said, turning back to her computer screen.

  Ben grinned. His partner was nothing if not predictable. He might have hoped for a more active sidekick, but Nance was fully invested in the project. She was quiet, almost a recluse, but that didn’t bother him. Like Ben, she wanted desperately to escape Torrent Four, but her skills were different from his own. Getting up and preparing a meal for the two of them simply wouldn’t occur to her. There was work to be done at her computer and she would spend every waking hour doing that work, even to the detriment of her own health.

  He walked up the stairs to the upper level of the ship, which was open in the center with a food prep station and long banquet table. Above the kitchen and mess area, the hull was made of transparent steel so that the open space on the upper level served as an observation deck. It was surrounded by small cabins, which Ben hoped to refurbish one day, but the crew quarters were a higher priority to him.

  He unwrapped the vacuum seal on a protein brick. The protein was manufactured and tasteless, just a lump of moldable food that would stay good for decades if the vacuum seal wasn’t broken. They were the main food source on Torrent Four—cheap, easy to get, transport, prepare, and keep. The difficulty came in obtaining spices or flavor pac
ks. They were much more rare and exponentially more expensive. It was rumored that with the right spices and seasonings, a chef could turn a protein brick into a gourmet meal. To Ben and Nance, it was simply fuel their bodies needed. He had artificial seasoning packs, which didn’t taste like real food, but did give the protein brick flavor. He cut the brick in two, sprinkled it with a powder that claimed to be pizza flavoring, and stuck them in the processing unit.

  While the protein warmed, Ben checked their water stores. They had just under ten gallons left of potable water. Once they had enough pure oxygen and hydrogen, they could manufacture drinking water. But the hydro-generator needed a magnetic coupler, which he had yet to find in the vast scrapyard. Once he had it, they would be ready to take the Echo into space. All they would need was a supply of Zexum, which would serve as fuel for the fusion reactor, and Ben had a feeling he knew exactly where to get the rare element. He forced himself not to look ahead. They still needed the hydro-generator working and a competent pilot they could trust. Only then would Ben consider uncovering the ship from the mounds of scrap that hid her in vast salvage yard.

  The processor chirped, signaling that their meal was ready. Ben grabbed their clean sporks, filled two steel water bottles, and put all the food on a tray. He carried the meal down to where Nance was working, and they ate without talking. When they finished, there was more work to do, then they could get a few hours of sleep before they made plans to do it all over again the next day.

  Chapter 3

  “You flying today, Kimbo?”

  “I fly every day, Squatter,” Kim Beaudry said.

  They were in the canyons in one of the taverns known to cater to kite flyers. Squatter wasn’t a flyer, but he made a living organizing races.

  “Mavrik’s back. And looking for revenge,” Squatter said. “I could set up a head-to-head if you’re interested. There should be some heavy action with your history.”